Challenge Response: Is Marriage Really Connected to Children?

If marriage is really about having children, then doesn’t it follow that heterosexual couples who can’t (or don’t plan to) have children shouldn’t be allowed to marry? That’s this week’s challenge that I answered today.

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The fact that we make laws based on rules doesn’t mean that laws don’t contain exceptions. Tax laws contain all kinds of exceptions. And I’m sure you would agree, Alan, that if abortion were ever made illegal that there should be an exception to save the life of the mother. With that being the case, why not make an exception in the case of sterile heterosexuals who want to get married?

Sam, I would say that the government doesn’t care about making sure that every union does lead to children, only that the union that leads to children is protected for the sake of all the children that do come.

Seems to me that the Government is/was opting for the ideal. Anything less is too hard and varied for them to want to deal with.

But now that last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, sitting in Boston, ruled that DOMA’s denial to same-sex couples of federal benefits enjoyed by straight couples in Massachusetts is unconstitutional, we might see them open the flood gates for all sorts of varied coupling/grouping/etc.

But, marriage really is, by nature, designed for the protection of children and their upbringing. We can play the “Kids can be just as healthy in ‘this’ type of coupling/grouping” game all we want. But ideally, children need their biological parents. Both of them, not one of them. Anything less is not as healthy for the child.